#1: Share valuable content in your own voice

Do your best to craft your content tweets, @replies and promotional tweets all with a seamless style that matches your personality and/or brand.

Ideally, you want people to read your tweets and feel naturally compelled to click on your links and retweet you.

You just want to add value and have no agenda or attachment to “making the sale,” yet you’re strategic and mindful about how you tweet. Then you’ll see a marked improvement in your retweet and click-through rates.

#2: Use keywords in your tweets

Keywords have been and continue to be a relevant and driving force for web content (whether we’re talking about a website, blog post, Facebook update or a tweet). Keywords are the backbone of content.

So I’d have to say hands-down, my best Twitter marketing tip for business is to make a list of keywords that best describe your business and industry. Use these words as you compose your 140-character posts.

Think quality over quantity. Make every character and tweet count!

#3: Share links to useful content

Sharing links to useful content is, statistically speaking, more effective at growing and retaining followers than “engaging” with them in conversation.

That’s not to say that conversations aren’t useful in helping people to like you, but if you want to grow your fan base, you need to share more links than you do @replies.

#4: Use search features to discover what your clients want

Use the search feature in a Twitter tool like HootSuite to watch for conversations about a problem your business can solve. It will give you insight into what is on your prospects’ minds and provide an open door for you to help them.

Try providing a link to a great article or video that answers their question. This one action could lead to an ongoing dialogue that in turn may lead to a customer relationship later.

#5: Connect with the right people and tweet with them

There are two crucial things businesses should focus on when implementing their Twitter strategy.

The first is not finding just anyone to follow in hopes that they follow you back, but finding relevant people to follow who are more likely to follow you back. You can bloat your account to 100,000+ followers, but if they are not interested in your content, it gets you nowhere.

You need to be using tools such as Follower Wonk, Twellow and Wefollow to find people who are in your region (if you’re a local business) and interested in your industry. Then start following them.

The second is after you find your targeted audience, don’t just tweet at them—tweet with them. Follow their conversations; add in your two cents from time to time. Follow anyone who talks about your brand and thank them for their compliments or help them with their concerns. Follow anyone who talks about your industry and show why you are an authority.

Doing these things will help you run a successful Twitter campaign that will give your brand exposure as a leader in your industry!

#6: Use a classic icebreaker

Most followers become nameless, faceless numbers on a follower list. Remember when networking used to be about meeting people face to face? Icebreakers were important then, and they’re just as important now in the virtual world.

Icebreakers help you share a common connection with a stranger—and make you memorable enough to begin and sustain a long-term relationship.

When you find relevant tweets from among your followers, retweet their blog link—and follow the author’s feed. Then send them an @message, detailing something insightful about their blog post. At the end of the tweet, link to a similar post you’ve written.

This should result in more blog comments, retweets and followers, all from 10 minutes of effort. Twitter is all about icebreakers, and collecting followers who instantly recognize you in a sea of faces. Invest time in your introductions and they’ll make all the difference to your feed.

#7: Cultivate relationships

Pay attention when someone tweets about your blog posts or retweets something you’ve shared. When you are building a business, never take it for granted when people help you spread the word. Start by thanking them for the tweet. And take it a step further: add them to a private list for tweeters and retweeters.

At least once every day for five minutes, review the tweets in that list. Look for great content that you might have missed, information from smart people you need to follow and conversation trends you might have missed. Jump into conversations, retweet items your community would appreciate and thank people for sharing great things.

But most of all, get to know more about these people who volunteered to become part of your team by sharing your content. It’s all about relationships, and Twitter helps you build relationships with these important members of your community.

#8: Engage your audience

Find ways to reach out and engage your audience. Too many businesses want to just set their Twitter feed on autopilot or constantly push promotional content.

Although there is a place for the promotional tweet, your feed will receive much more attention if you make it a resource for your followers. Sharing articles of interest, leading discussions on topics important to your industry, answering questions and sometimes just being there can do this.

It’s about creating relationships and building trust in those relationships. Although they may not be clients now, when the time comes, you’ve already cleared the first hurdle for your followers.

#9: Be helpful

Plenty of people are filling up Twitter streams with the tech-equivalent of screaming infomercials to buy things. Effective marketing on Twitter takes time. But it also takes more than just selling or pushing your message.

Engaging and interacting with your consumers in a consistent and helpful way will keep your product or service at top of mind. Not everyone needs your offering right now. You want to provide information and solutions that keep them reading, so when they need what you have, they know you’re there for them.

#10: Transparency lends credibility

If you mess up, admit it. If you don’t know the answer to a question, admit it. If you’re inexperienced, admit it. If you’re willing to admit that your business is not perfect and is a work-in-progress or open to suggestion, your audience is more likely to take you seriously. You build your company’s credibility and trustworthiness.

The quickest way to lose credibility? If, as a business, you attempt to cover-up, lie or over-promise and under-deliver.

Be honest, be real and be transparent.

#11: Use hashtags to create and curate conversations around your brand

You can reward your followers when they participate by retweeting them or displaying their tweets on your site or blog.

Bergdorf Goodman is a high-end clothing and shoe retailer that is using the Instagram photo app as well as a Twitter hashtag (#BGShoes) to encourage fans to tweet pictures of their shoes (purchased at BG of course) around the city of New York.

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great web resources (www.socialammo.com) and several terrific books you can read.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords, Microsoft adCenter or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta tag, as no major search engine today supports it.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

15. Build links intelligently. Begin with foundational links like trusted directories. (Yahoo and DMOZ are often cited as examples, but don’t waste time worrying about DMOZ submission. Submit it and forget it.) Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area — the Chamber of Commerce, local business directories, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too. Create great content on a consistent basis and use social media to build awareness and links. (A blog is great for this; see below.)

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts.

LinkedIn is the most powerful business connecting tool available for professionals today. Find ideal prospects, uncover common connections, ask for strategic introductions and get recommendations through this invaluable professional social media site.

Join groups and discussions that attract your prospects. Follow specific companies and their employees and connect with them when appropriate. Create and market events. Perform market research.

But knowing how to navigate it is not enough. Business Development University teaches specific techniques and strategies on how to leverage Linkedin to build business relationships, and maximize the site’s capabilities. Learn how to connect with prospects; create an SEO (search engine optimization) profile so that you can be found; utilize group members and discussions; create a strong network of professionals; and develop Linkedin marketing plans for individuals and sales teams that drive business and ultimately revenues.

Leverage your warm market. Discover who you know, and find out that they may know who you want to know.

The #1 mistake? Your Employer link is a Community Page!

Go to your Facebook profile now and mouseover your Employer field – you’ll see it’s not linked to your fan page!
When Facebook changed your profile to the new design, it automatically hyperlinked your EMPLOYER field to an auto-generated COMMUNITY PAGE!

(What is a Community Page? It’s an auto-generated wiki style of page that, in some ways, “competes” with your official fan page… at least, it can be confusing for some people when they’re trying to find you.

If you work for yourself and have your own Facebook Fan Page (or you’re an employee and your employer has a fan page), I highly recommend that you change this Employer field to your Fan Page.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube provide businesses an outlet to gain exposure like never before. SocialAmmo.com can help your business build it's online presence. We specialize in promoting your business and increasing your following. Let us help you jump start your online business, what used to take months can now be done in days. Our creative process will get you the results. Contact us today for complete details.

Our Services

SocialAmmo.com offers many services to help your business thrive online. Below is a list of some of our services.

Will submit your site to over 700 directories!Will get you 500 to 2000 real people likes to your Facebook page!Will open you a Twitter account and get you targeted follower!Will give you a list of 9 Million US Business Emails!Will give you 25,000 emails of Facebook users!Will write your personal or business press release!Will create a blog that matches your website!

Pricing is based on the services requested. Our rates are very affordable.We offer a monthly service as well to help insure continued growth for your business.